"The Iran war must end with a decisive victory. And that victory can only be achieved in one of two ways..."

"Either Iran capitulates or the U.S. launches a final flurry of military strikes. Trump has given the regime every opportunity to sue for peace, and it has rejected his overtures. It is admirable that Trump is taking his time. He understands that what he is doing is important and cannot be rushed. But it is also true that he cannot declare victory until either Iran cries uncle — or he finishes the job."

Writes Marc A. Thiessen in "Trump is 14 days from decisive victory in Iran/The regime won’t deal and the blockade alone won't break it. Only military action will" (WaPo).

ADDED: Elsewhere in WaPo, there's "What will happen when the clock strikes 60 days on Trump’s war/Clinton's precedent will allow Trump to keep fighting Iran without congressional approval."

"Republican leaders were able to garner enough support for their procedural maneuver to kill the resolution after Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana flipped their position..."

"... and joined the effort to stop it from coming up for a vote. The shift brought about a 50-50 tie, which was broken late Wednesday in favor of Republican leadership by Vice President JD Vance, in his role as president of the Senate."

From "Republicans Block Effort to Check Trump’s Power in Venezuela/G.O.P. leaders succeeded in pressuring fellow senators who initially supported the measure that would have limited President Trump’s military authority in Venezuela" (NYT).

That was close. Sufficient garnering occurred.

"[Rand] Paul, the sole Republican to cosponsor the resolution, said that he too had spoken with Mr. Trump but was unmoved. He criticized party leaders for 'playing games' and accused the administration of misleading lawmakers. 'Oh, it’s a drug bust. Oh, we’re going for drugs. Oh, it’s not really drugs, now it’s oil,' he said. 'So see, the bait and switch has already happened.'"

"Some of the president’s critics will concede that Mr. Suleimani was an evil man, but many complain his killing was unlawful. Wrong...."

"He was a United States-designated terrorist commander. As I have been briefed, he was plotting further attacks against Americans at the time of his death. The authority granted to the president under Article II of the Constitution provides ample legal basis for this strike. Furthermore, those who accept the constitutionality of the War Powers Act should recall that Congress’s 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force very much remain in effect and clearly cover the Suleimani operation. This will be a relief to the Obama administration, which ordered hundreds of drone strikes using such a legal rationale. American forces are in Iraq at the invitation of the Iraqi government, and they have every right and authority to defend themselves. This legal act of self-defense was not only proportionate — it was targeted and brilliantly executed, causing essentially no collateral damage."

Writes Senator Tom Cotton in "The Case for Killing Qassim Suleimani/The strike was justified and legally sound" (NYT).

That phrase "targeted and brilliantly executed, causing essentially no collateral damage" made me think of the Iranians hitting the passenger plane, which seems to have been the exact opposite — completely mistargeted, idiotically executed, and causing nothing but collateral damage, extreme collateral damage.

"We asked 2020 candidates how they would wield presidential power. Here is what they said."

A NYT extravaganza.

I tried to read some of that but it's a tough slog through the verbiage. The questions are long and carefully framed, but you're not adequately rewarded for understanding the questions because the answers are not written to make the distinctions clear.

My son John blogged this by choosing just one question and only 2 answers to it.

The one question John chose was:

1. Presidential War Powers

In recent years, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has claimed that the Constitution authorizes the president, as commander in chief, to order the military to attack other countries without congressional permission if the president determines that this would be anticipatory self-defense or otherwise serve the interests of the United States — at least where the nature, scope and duration of the anticipated hostilities are “limited,” like airstrikes against Libyan government forces in 2011 and Syrian government forces in 2017 and 2018.

Do you agree with the O.L.C.’s reasoning? Under what circumstances other than a literally imminent threat to the United States, if any, does the Constitution permit a president to order an attack on another country without prior Congressional authorization? What about bombing Iranian or North Korean nuclear facilities?

You have to work just to understand the question, and I admire the NYT for framing the questions with such precision. But the candidates can't give straight answers — especially the ones who are and will probably continue to be members of Congress. The 2 answers John picked out are from Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg — neither of whom is currently a member of Congress. John seems to see a distinct difference between the 2 answers.

Cool eyes hallucinating at the constitutional lawprofs of war.

"Obama attacked from the left" is a tag of mine, and I'm applying it to this NYT op-ed by Yale conlawprof Bruce Ackerman: "Obama’s Betrayal of the Constitution." Dateline — ominously! — Berlin. Excerpt:

President Obama’s declaration of war against the terrorist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria marks a decisive break in the American constitutional tradition. Nothing attempted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, remotely compares in imperial hubris....

That's a bold beginning, but it's actually weakened by seeming to open up a discussion of the need for a formal declaration of war, something that the United States hasn't had since WWII. But Ackerman proceeds to discuss the "authorization for the use of military force," which Congress gave to President Bush 3 days after the 9/11 attacks. That vote was practically unanimous.

Let me take a little detour of my own here. The "no" vote in 2001 was from Barbara Lee, who was called a "traitor" and a "communist" at the time, but whose words are strikingly prescient today.

"Is Harold Koh the Left’s John Yoo?"

One might well ask.

McConnell: "But I do think there is more of a tendency to pull together when the guy in the White House is on your side."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, asked about “the isolationist streak of some in the Republican Party." The subject is Libya and the War Powers Act.

I’m not sure that these kind of differences might not have been there in a more latent form when you had a Republican president. But I do think there is more of a tendency to pull together when the guy in the White House is on your side. So I think some of these views were probably held by some of my members even in the previous administration, but party loyalty tended to mute them. So yeah, I think there are clearly differences and I think a lot of our members, not having a Republican in the White House, feel more free to express their reservations which might have been somewhat muted during the previous administration.

Thoughtful and honest, right? Is it also disturbing? Should members of Congress be expected to take a consistent position with respect to presidential power and the military? Or does the need for a check on the President justify the pressure from whichever party happens to be the opposing party?

"Harold Koh is the Gollum of Foggy Bottom."

"Considering Koh's background, the whole episode offers a cautionary tale about the corrupting effects of power."

"According to the liberal apparatchiks in the White House, Mr. Obama can bypass Congress simply by redefining 'hostilities.'"

"War is no longer war. It is whatever Mr. Obama says it is — or isn’t. George Orwell warned that the perversion of language is the first step on the dark road to authoritarianism."

Oh, settle down. You're acting like Obama is a Republican.

ADDED: "You only are what you believe, and I believe the war is over," sang Phil Ochs a long time ago. And Barack Obama believes what we're doing in Libya is not the introduction of U.S. armed forces...

(1) into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances;

(2) into the territory, airspace or waters of a foreign nation, while equipped for combat, except for deployments which relate solely to supply, replacement, repair, or training of such forces; or

(3) in numbers which substantially enlarge United States Armed Forces equipped for combat already located in a foreign nation...

No. He can't even believe that. He can only pose as someone who believes that. And he can't believably pose as someone who believes that. The linked article warns us about the first step on the dark road to authoritarianism. I would have pictured the first step on that road as more of a confident stride or bold march, not a crazy bike trick with a spectacular stumble and...



... "I meant to do that."